I just put up a Senegal home shirt with this the away version from the same year. As I mentioned, I’m pretty sure these were used at the 2002 World Cup where Senegal shocked the World to reach the quarter-final stage on their first and only trip to the World Cup finals.
If you want to read more about Senegal’s journey and more about the shirts, please check out my other post, the Senegal home shirt.
Every World Cup tends to feature at least one country that do much better than expected and grab people’s attention. Back at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Senegal were that team as they shocked opponent after opponent to reach the quarter-finals, one of only three African countries in history to do so.
The fact that it was their World Cup debut made their performances even more special. They famously knocked off World Champions France in their opening group game before drawing with Denmark and Uruguay to go through in second place. In the round of 16 they saw off Sweden in extra time before losing to Turkey who would go on to finish third.
Off the back of such a great tournament, Senegal players including Papa Bouba Diop, El Hadji Diouf and Aliou Cisse flocked to England and the Premier League. Cisse joined my team Birmingham and was a good servant for us. He also had a strong connection with the fans with us holding up a giant Senegal flag and having a money collection after he lost 12 family members in the MV Le Joola ferry disaster.
Since 2002, Senegal have failed to qualify for the World Cup so still have a pretty amazing record of reaching the quarters on their only visit. The year was a pretty special one for Les Lions de la Teranga as they lost to Cameroon in the final of the African Nations Cup. They are yet to win the tournament.
I managed to find this shirt for sale cheap on eBay and the auction also included the away shirt from the same year. After doing a bit of research, I believe this was the shirt used in the 2002 World Cup which makes it a bit more special. The shirt is a pretty nice design by Le Coq Sportif who are hardly known for their brilliant attempts.
Another African team added to the blog and it’s always nice to have a bit of history sitting in your wardrobe!
I’ve just added some iconic club shirts so thought it was about time to go back to my bread and butter with a great international shirt. Luckily it was just delivered by the postman so I can bring it to you here now!
Ivory Coast, or Cote D’Ivoire for any French readers, are the highest ranked African team at 23 in the World rankings and were very unlucky not to make it through to the knockout stages of the World Cup. They were beaten by Greece courtesy of a 93rd minute penalty to send them crashing out.
Their ‘poor performance’ even led to Ivorian Football Federation president Augustine Sidy apologising to the country. They say they have learnt their lessons but there are rumours Giovanni Trapattoni will take over as their new manager so maybe they haven’t.
On paper they have a very good team with the likes of Cheick Tiote, Yaya Toure, Wilfried Bony and Didier Drogba but as we often see with African nations, they underperformed again on the big stage. Their sole tournament win was the African Cup of Nations back in 1992, hence the star above the crest.
The shirt itself is one of a number of excellent efforts by Puma. They really do great work with the African teams and make sure they stand out from the crowd with unique features. There is a print on the shoulders, on the cuffs and down the side of the shirt which looks great. They’ve got the shirt, now The Elephants just need to do the business on the field.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s long wait to finally reach a major tournament as an independent nation came to an end after they qualified for Brazil 2014.
Unfortunately for the Bosnians, they flattered to deceive. After losing to Nigeria and Argentina both by the odd goal, they were out. A final game win over Iran did little to raise the spirits for what is, on paper, a pretty strong team.
With names such as Asmir Begovic, Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko, they are hardly short of quality but perhaps their lack of top level international experience came back to bite them on the behind.
On the plus side Bosnia they have a great chance of qualifying for Euro 2016. With Belgium, Israel, Wales, Cyprus and Andorra in their group, a top two finish shouldn’t be too difficult.
The shirt itself is a pretty plain design from Legea. Bosnia have since moved on to Adidas and when their shirts finally hit the mainstream shops, I may have to pick one up.
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